The Mechanism of Street Spatial Form on Thermal Comfort from Urban Morphology and Human-Centered Perspectives: A Study Based on Multi-Source Data

Abstract

The influence of street spatial form on thermal comfort from urban morphology and human-centered perspectives has been underexplored. This study, utilizing multi-source data and focusing on urban central districts, establishes a refined index system for street spatial form and a thermal comfort prediction model based on extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and Shapley additive explanations (SHAP). The results reveal the following: (1) Thermal comfort levels display spatial heterogeneity, with areas of thermal discomfort concentrated in commercial zones and plaza spaces. (2) Compared to the human-centered perspective, urban morphology indicators correlate strongly with thermal comfort. (3) The key factors influencing thermal comfort, in descending order of importance, are distance from green and blue infrastructure (GBI), tree visibility factor (TVF), street aspect ratio (H/W), orientation, functional diversity indices, and sky view factor. All but the TVF negatively correlates with thermal comfort. (4) In local analyses, the primary factors affecting thermal comfort vary across streets with different heat-risk levels. In high heat-risk streets, thermal comfort is mainly influenced by distance from GBI, H/W, and orientation, whereas in low heat-risk streets, vegetation-related factors dominate. These findings provide a new methodological approach for optimizing urban thermal environments from both urban and human perspectives, offering theoretical insights for creating more comfortable cities.